budget cuts? what to do...

If my day to day workplace is anything like most of yours, this month has been a bit of a downer. At St. John's we freeze our student data in the middle of October, providing advancement with the listing of new student names and current parent records and more importantly providing a snapshot of the current fiscal health of the university. While last fall was disastrous from a fundraising standpoint for our industry, this fall has greater potential for long term impact. Budget cuts are either here or coming and with the employment picture what it is, likely here for a couple of years.

Those of us on the front lines of fundraising realize that our most important step is to invest in programs, practice and people. We need to keep ourselves relevant to our donors and provide a concrete, responsible, grounded case for support to all prospects regardless of gift history. In addition to that, you need to make your organization relevant to your alumni today. Career Services, accurate and detailed reporting on the use and value of support and networking opportunities are three simple and controllable items that can provide ongoing relevance.

Unfortunately, budget cuts often target those items that provide this relevance because they are difficult to directly tie back to quantifiable benefits. It is easy to justify the cost of the phone program or a mailer or even a new online effort as they all end with direct and clear results - dollars and donors that you can balance against the cost of the effort. It is much more difficult to make a strong case for investing in stewardship, donor relations and communications efforts.

So what to do?

I advocate for a comprehensive approach - collaborate with your internal partners to create pieces that serve multiple functions. Identify several other offices that are looking to communicate with similar constituent bases. Think globally - we all work with the other aspects of advancement at our institutions but who else wants to communicate with external constituents? I would suggest the following offices may be worth a conversation: institutional research, academic deans, admissions/enrollment, career services, communications/marketing.

I am sure that there are others that are unique to your institution but you may notice a trend in the offices that I listed - almost all of them have a stake in the items that you are looking to provide - accountability, current services and networking opportunities. Use that common ground and shared efforts to maximize budgets and return on investment for you. This may require some sacrifice in direct control of the pieces but typically we are all better served to get something in our constituent's hands than not to. You will achieve benefits in increased communication and relationships that will carry value long after the current budget issue has passed and may just make a couple of new friends as well!